After clearing security at the airport, my family decides to stop at a sandwich shop on the way to our gate. My brother orders first and then goes to stand outside while the rest of us place our orders. While my mom is paying, my brother comes running back in.

Brother: “Guys, they’re calling us!”

Confused, we double-check our boarding passes and confirm that boarding isn’t even scheduled to start for another fifteen minutes. Figuring it must just be a message they need to give us, we keep waiting for our sandwiches. As they come up, we hear this.

Announcement: “[Our Last Name], party of five, please come to [gate] immediately for boarding.”

We grab our food and run through the terminal like something out of a movie, telling each other to hurry up, tripping on our luggage, barely holding on to our pillows, headphones, and other accessories. We’re almost there when we hear this.

Announcement: “[Our Last Name], party of five, this is your last call for boarding at [gate].”

Everything to this point has taken place over less than five minutes of time. As we board the flight, we notice a few fellow passengers glaring at us as if we had held up the entire plane, but as the plane is taxiing away, a flight attendant announces this.

Flight Attendant: “Okay, we want to thank everyone for boarding so quickly. Now we are able to leave fifteen minutes ahead of schedule!”

Upon landing in the next city, we sat on the tarmac for half an hour. The pilot informed us that this was because there were no available gates and we had to wait for our scheduled turn.

I am an industrial automation technician in a manufacturing plant and, as such, I write programs for our different systems. We have one of those “know it all” engineers who loves to tell me how to do my job but doesn’t have a clue what it’s about.

As an analogy, he’s a biology engineer and doesn’t know how to use a hammer, but because he adds windshield washer himself in his car, he figures he can tell a mechanic how to repair the transmission.

We get a new machine. It comes all assembled with its own control computer with the program/software they developed. We’re talking a half-million-dollar machine.

The engineer comes to me while the supplier is installing the machine.

Engineer: “Go with them and see how the program is made. It might be helpful.”

Me: “Why? It won’t be of any help. It’s their program and it’s locked. I can’t do anything to it.”

Engineer: “Yes, you can. We bought it.”

Me: “What you bought is the user’s license for it.”

Engineer: “Yes. We have the license, which means that you can modify the program in it.”

Me: “When you get Windows or any other OS, you buy a license. Does it gives you the right to alter it?”

Engineer: “Well… yes, when I install Word or something else, I’m modifying it. We have other machines of the same brand and you program them. Just go and look up their software to get how they program it so you will be able to modify it.”

Me: “That’s not the same. I can’t modify their program because it’s locked, write-protected. I can’t open it without the proper password. It’s their intellectual property. Their copyright. I have no right and no way to even access it. I can install Word but I can’t modify it.”

Engineer: “Yes, you can; we bought the license.”

Me: “The operation license. Not the source code.”

It took me close to half an hour of arguing to make him understand the difference between a proprietary software and an open-source one, or a machine you buy blank and program the way you want to. Even then…

Engineer: “I’ll ask them. Come with me. They’ll tell you.”

Me: “You go on. I have something to finish here first.”

I didn’t follow, and he never talked to me again about it. I guess “they told him.”

I approach a table of six in their early twenties. After greeting them, I take drink orders.

Customer #1: “Can I get a Coke?”

Me: “Is Pepsi okay?”

Customer #1: “Sure.”

Me: *To [Customer #2]* “And for you?”

Customer #2: “Can I get a Coke?”

Me: “Is Pepsi okay?”

Customer #2: “Sure.”

Me: *To [Customer #3]* “And for you?”

Customer #3: “Can I get a Coke?”

Me: *Sighs* “Sure.”

Later, I drop off refills.

Me: “And here’s a refill on your Pepsi.”

Customer #3: “It was a Coke.”

I reply over my shoulder as I’m walking away.

Me: “No, it wasn’t.”

Related:
Pepsi Vs Coke: The Great War Of Our Time

When I was in middle school, cell phones weren’t yet common, and nobody my age had one yet. I ate lunch near the one payphone in my school.

One lunchtime, there was a guy asking everyone if they had a quarter he could borrow since he needed to call his parents for whatever reason. I always had a few, due to missing the bus semi-regularly, so I gave him one. He thanked me, promised to pay me back, and then walked away, and I promptly forgot all about it.

I’m not sure how many days or weeks later it was when I was surprised at lunch by this random guy coming up to me and handing me a quarter!

It seems like such a small thing, but just the fact that he remembered me and paid me back, when he really didn’t have to, meant enough for me to still remember it clearly to this day.

Friend: “Is it true you really have a cousin who’s a Sith Lord?”

Me: “What? Not that I know of. Where did you ever hear that from?”

Friend: “From [Mutual Acquaintance who knows other members of my extended family].”

Me: “Umm… Are you maybe talking about [Cousin]?”

Friend: “Just ‘cousin’ is all I know.”

Me: “Okay, well, [Cousin] is Sikh. S-I-K-H. It’s an Indian religion.”